Armor
by Critic From Hell
Summary: Unable to live, yet unready to die, a lord knight scours the world for answers, all while trying to remain human at heart.
1. Prologue: Tale's End

He was going to die.

It didn't take a genius to come to that conclusion, with him backed to a ledge by the biggest lava golem that ever walked in Magma caves. Even if he was one of the most lethal lord knights in all of Rune-Midgard, he had little chance against the ten-foot behemoth of molten rock slowly lumbering up to him, its flowing hide glowing white from its temperature. Even from a distance, the lord knight could feel the warmth emanating from the monster, heat that made hellish atmosphere of the caves feel like candles in comparison. The lord knight had never felt something so _intense_ before in his life.

He was going to die.

As the golem neared even closer, heat washed over the lord knight in waves, cooking him in his armor like a crab. He felt like he was being boiled alive, his own blood churning in his veins like liquid fire. Sweat on his skin steamed. Blisters rose and fell on his hands as the skin began to run like wax. He had to bend his head to the creature to avoid popping his eyeballs, and he swore to god that at last glimpse, his sword had warped as the thing neared him.

He was going to die.

It was not a fearful thought of what was to come. It was a simple despairing statement of what was going to happen. He'd been dog-tired and near dying even before the thing had appeared, courtesy of an adventure no sane man would have embarked on. Burn marks, claw scars, tooth punctures peppered his skin. His limbs felt like they were made of metal, too heavy to lift, too awkward to move. His body refused to move as he willed it, a sensation he had become all too familiar with, usually attributed to his ability to ignore fatigue until his body broke down.

He was going to die.

Slowly, the lord knight lifted his head, determined to confront his killer face to face. He regretted it almost immediately. The retinas fried the moment he gazed into the golem's gaping maw, agony like the lord knight had never experienced before. As he threw back his head to scream, the golem attacked, opening up it's kiln-like maw and enveloped the lord knight in a torrent of fire.

He was going to die.

It struck his entire body at once, a pillar of fire so brilliant it looked like light. The fireproof material of his armor began to melt, the metal dripping onto his flesh and eating away at it like acid. Black oridecon stuck to his skeleton and fused straight to the bone, frying what soft tissue there was on the knight. In mere seconds, he was dead, cremated in his own armor. All that was left was an obsidian statue, a horrifying end to a horrifying life.

_Yet, he refused to die._


	2. Chapter 1

It was a long time before life flared in his eyes, eerie embers of red in the shadow of his helmet. For a moment, they raged like hellfire, taking in his surroundings with intention to smash it all to tiny, tiny bits.

_"Fire, rocks, lava, and more fire."_

The embers of his eyes flickered uncertainly.

_"Fuck me with a ten-foot pole, I've died and gone to hell."_

The lord knight faltered slightly, suddenly fearful. He'd been expecting the nothingness of the Abyss when he died, not an eternity of suffering in high temperatures under the watchful eyes of a bunch of pitchfork wielding imps. Though in his mind, getting roasted on a spit for all of eternity rated higher than oblivion, he wasn't prepared for this.

His skin burned easily.

As the lord knight turned to run, however, he found himself unable to raise his foot. Or bend his leg, for that matter. Apparently, in hell, they removed people's kneecaps and soldered them to the ground, just in case anyone got any funny ideas.

The lord knight bent over and tried to pull his leg loose, only to discover that he seemed to lack a functional waist and elbows as well, though his shoulders worked fine.

He tried to scream, but nothing came out. He tried to groan, but somehow managed a weak scratching sound instead. He tried flailing his arms wildly and kicking at the same time, in hope of breaking his greaves off of the floor. The unexpected success of the last maneuver took him completely by surprise, sending him on his back in a rather unceremonious manner. The lord knight hit the ground hard, striking it with all two hundred pounds of armor still encasing him. It should have felt like having a bookcase fall on him.

It didn't.

As a matter of fact, nothing felt like anything.

The lord knight blinked, unsure of what to make of the discovery. On one hand, he probably wasn't in hell, considering how hell was a place of suffering. Not much suffering to be done when the victim was nerveless through and through, after all. On the other hand, if he couldn't feel, that probably meant he was seriously wounded, more seriously than ever before. He couldn't imagine how bad that'd be. It was like something had seared off every nerve on his body, then randomly fused the joints of his armor together-

_"…oh, right."_

Cursing his incredible fortune, the lord knight rolled onto his belly and began to crawl as quickly as he could out of there, before something else found his half-charred ass and took a chunk out of it. It was a long, tedious journey, made twice as hard and a hundredfold more stupid looking by his inability to bend his limbs. He struggled facedown through the cave for hours, silently swearing all the way.

It wasn't until he reached the cave entrance that he realized that he hadn't been attacked by as much a flaming bat on his way out.

He shrugged indifferently. Perhaps they did not relish canned meat.

It was some time after he had crawled out of the cave, found a rock to prop himself back on his feet with, and discovered how to walk without looking _too _damned retarded that he came upon the water hole. Little more than an overgrown puddle, it was still the source of life on the plateau, the only source of water on Yuno Fields. In a sense, it was not so different from the oasis in Morroc, in that if you didn't drink from it while you had the chance, you'd probably shrivel up and die of dehydration before you reached civilization.

With that in mind, the lord knight approached the hole, despite not feeling the slightest bit thirsty and unable to bend over to take a sip without falling headlong into the pool. It was quite curious, actually, how he could feel nothing, not move his joints, and not even speak.

_"There's probably a medical term for this." _He mused as he hobbled over to the hole. _"Some big, long-ass word. Hell, they have a word for everything. Wonder what the hell I hav-"_

He stopped.

Stared into the reflection in the pool.

And had the first true shock of his life.

Before him was a towering suit of black armor, badly melted in several places, altogether missing in a few others, especially the lightly armored midriff and visor. The knee and elbow plates had been fused into immovable pieces, and all designs or markings had been blasted out of existence. The heat had caused the metal to cave in and contort to near skeletal proportions; doubtlessly destroying whatever may have been underneath. No living man could have occupied the suit, not unless he shaved off half his torso and starved off his arms and legs. But that was the least of his worries. There was something far, far worse going on.

The suit was empty.

Completely and utterly empty.

The lord knight stared into the pool a while longer, realized it wasn't a dream, and calmly diagnosed himself with a minor case of _Fucking Deadus._

He sat down, well aware that it was going to be a bitch to get back up again without his knees. The lord knight hardly cared. He needed some time to think. To think of… something… to think of… anything… to calm down, to gather up his mind, to take stock of what he had, and what he had to do…

_"…and who, exactly, am I? "_

Perhaps it was the shock of realizing he was dead. Perhaps it was trauma from the death itself. Perhaps it was because he was quite literally without a brain. Whatever the reason, the lord knight remembered little of his flesh and blood life. In fact, he was beginning to wonder if he had ever been human.

_"…ever been hum-?"_

He exploded out of his seat, teetered. And righted himself. He'd lost his body, his life, and his memories. He be _damned _if he let whatever was left slip away. Without the slightest idea where he was headed, the lord knight hobbled off.


	3. Chapter 2

Juno, capital city of the Schubaltzvalt Republic, was a remarkable city, in that it was situated on ten-thousand tons of airborne rock, split into three floating islands. No one remembered how the section of the plateau managed to splinter itself from its surroundings. No one remembered why. All they knew was that it was one of the most beautiful, most wonderful spots in all of Rune-Midgard, home to some of the most magically minded group of individuals in the world; the Sages. An entire island was devoted to the research, development, and teaching of magic. All this knowledge was stored in the great library, an immense structure that was said to contain answers to every question. If there was anyone in the world who could tell the lord knight what he had become, it was here.

Not that he knew that. All he knew was that there was "a fucking weird city. Floating. In midair." Considering how his head was empty, this place looked like as good a place to visit as any. Quickly yet awkwardly, the lord knight shambled up the stone steps and climbed onto the bridge that connected the city to the plateau, unaware of the faint tingling sensation that passed through his metal shell as he crossed a threshold he should not have been able to cross.

It did not occur to him that his appearance might have been alarming to the local populace until half a dozen glowing, rune-inscribed circles suddenly materialized around him, heralding an incoming barrage of magic.

The hail of spells struck him from all sides, instantly engulfing his battered form in a cloud of flames, lightning, stalagmites, and icicles. His shell began to implode under the pressure of the blast, and the lord knight knew no more.

* * *

He awoke slowly, eyes kindling at a sluggish pace. Things seemed to crawl before his eyes like molasses, and the world refused to orient itself, no matter how much he blinked. The lord knight wondered if he had died again, this time for good. The thought was not without its appeal. He felt like he was suffering from intoxication and hangovers simultaneously, minus the pain. Everything looked like a mess of goddamned colors, and he could barely_ think_ straight.

An eternity seemed to pass before things formed into discernable shapes, none of which made him feel any better. It looked like the interior of a curiosity shop, crossed with an armory, spliced with an apothecary. There were funny looking weapons. There were pieces of ancient armor. There were bottles filled with dried herbs. There were various trinkets of strange and inhuman designs. There were jars of body parts submerged in brine.

It was, in general, not the greatest of places to wake up in.

The lord knight tried to stand up. He did not move. Instead, something behind him fell over, striking the wooden floorboards directly in front of his face. For some time, he simply stared at it, trying to make sense of what he was seeing.

It was impossible. It was his goddamned leg. He doubted there was anyone in the world flexible enough to stare at the back of their own knee, especially up to the point where their would-be nose would have been brushing against skin. Impossible, of course, unless…

The lord knight wiggled his ankle some, and the limb in front of him moved, scooting around on the floor until one end was facing him.

Yep, it was severed. It still moved, but it was severed. How or why it operated without connection to the rest of his body, he didn't want to know. What he did know was that it was damned creepy, and that he didn't like it. Besides, if one leg was missing, and it's absence hadn't caused the room to tilt in his eyes, which would have to mean that something was balancing out. Which probably meant…

"…._aw shit."_

Experimentation proved him legless. Armless. Torsoless.

Frustration drove him to scream, bitch, and moan for hours.

Desperation convinced him that wiggling his ankles and propelling his legs around the floor in small circles might somehow help him.

Realization of the hopelessness of it all brought silence.

* * *

Just when he thought he was going to go mad with boredom, the door opened. The lord knight's attention was instantly drawn to the intruders, despite being powerless.

There were two of them, a female and a male, though in the case of the lead figure, gender was probably optional. The only thing that identified her as female was the lack of a beard, and the only thing that classified her as living was that her throat rasped whenever she inhaled, suggesting that she was not long of this world. The lord knight judged her to be pushing two-hundred and five, and in dire need of a pyramid to shove her shriveled old corpse in.

The second figure, on the other hand, was young, in his late teens or early adulthood. Six-feet tall and muscles rippling underneath his robes, he looked more like a knight than a sage, though his general spinelessness quickly killed that thought. The giant was hunched over, hiding underneath a heavy cloak as if perpetually afraid of being struck. The lord knight suspected the fellow was mentally retarded, or perhaps an eunuch. People who grew that big and still lacked a spine tended to be on the simple side.

Despite the fact that he doubted they were here to help him, the lord knight gave them his full attention. Mostly because there were the only things in the room he hadn't spent the last eternity and a half acquainting himself with.

"This is it?" The crone hissed. "This is where the raydric's remains are stored?"

"Yes, mistress." The giant answered, his eyes darting back and forth between the hag and the open doorway. "Mistress, we should not be here-"

"Where is it?" The hag cut in.

"In the weaponry section, beside the spears. Please mistress, if we are caught prying into the materials of others, we will be suspended-"

The hag ignored him in favor of haggling up to the lord knight, to his growing alarm. They were talking about him, calling him a raydric… whatever the fuck that was. What was a raydric? Was he one? If not, than what the hell was he?

His thoughts were interrupted, however, when the hag lifted him, or his head, at any rate. The lord knight suddenly found himself face to face with the hag, a sight that probably would have made him hurl.

"Mistress, its eyes… they still burn…"

"So they do, so they do." The hag observed. "Tsk, tossed aside like garbage. No idea how to treat artifacts. Antiques. Not junk." The hag tilted him, presumably to take a look inside his braincase. The lord knight felt oddly violated.

"Mistress…" The giant began warily. "Mistress… is it still alive?"

"Only in the sense that all its kind is alive." The hag replied casually. "An imprint lingers, hates, and kills in this shell. But it does not truly live, cannot think or feel, and consequently cannot die."

The lord knight's eyes flickered. The hag was off on a few marks, but immortality? That was an interesting thought. He could be a fucking doorstop until the end of time.

"An imprint?" The giant ventured, suddenly curious. "You mean a soul?"

"Tsk. Soul, shmoul. This raggedy thing can hardly pass as a ghost, let alone an intact conscience." The hag mused, setting him down in favor of his severed leg. She wore a pensive expression as she bent to examine the inner working of his greaves. "Strange… these runes…"

"Runes, mistress?"

"Runes, carvings, anything to imbue him with the power to have crossed the barrier placed upon this city to keep his kind out." The hag snapped, picking her way into the lord knight's torso. "But these patterns… I do not recognize them…"

The hag handed the leg over to the giant, who proceeded to go over it himself. There was a flicker of recognition in the giant's eye as he glanced down the greaves, flaring into surprise, confusion, and horror all in a few seconds time. However, he remained silent as the hag picked her way through the lord knight's arm, presumably to search for more clues.

This was not lost to the lord knight. Perhaps, he mused, the giant wasn't completely without stones after all…

A tremor passed through the giant's body after he made his discovery, stopping that train of thought like a log on the tracks. Fearfully, the giant dropped the leg. "Mistress, we really should not be here… These are Professor Verod's research subjects."

"So they are, so they are. Your point?"

"We have… no right to be looking through them-"

"As if he knows more of corpses than I!" The hag hissed, tightening her grip on the gauntlet. "I've forgotten more than he will _ever_ know about those who come back from the land of the dead! I know how they walk this world… I know why their bodies yet feed… I even know how to call them back…"

Probably because she was one of them, the lord knight reflected.

"…how they walk?"

"Of course." The hag snapped. "Rotting flesh… decomposing organs… they are gone, life from their veins. They cannot work as they once did…"

"And what of this raggedy thing of steel and malice?" The hag continued, waving at the lord knight. "No body to hold it together, no strings to make it dance. No voice box to chatter with, either, though this one seems to have lost it tongue." Bending over, the hag picked up his head once more, staring him straight in the face. To the lord knight's discomfort, she looked even uglier the second time, and a bit more menacing. "How does it move? What makes it speak? Why is it _it_?"

At this point, the lord knight was giving her his full, undivided attention, hoping to gain some insight regarding his current condition. Despite being completely fucking bonkers, the woman knew things.

"It is magic, it is…"

Or acted like she did. The lord knight decided he hated her.

"Magic… this thing knows magic?" The giant inquired.

"It _is_ magic." The hag hissed, scratching her nails across the surface of the helm. "The very essence of the art drives this shell. What it wants to move, moves. What it wants to happen, happens."

An interesting thought. Did that mean that if he wanted to curl his hand into a ball and send it hurtling through the hag's head, it would happen? The lord knight grinned inwardly as he immediately set to imaging it happen.

"Then… mistress…might it not rise now, and attack us?" The giant muttered, glancing at the helm fearfully.

"Unlikely. Scattered, scattered it is, fragmented, all to pieces. It would take its whole to move its body. I doubt now if it can even lift it's fingers…"

The lord knight did his best to prove her wrong, albeit it was only one finger.

As the conversation between the two sages dragged on, the lord knight grew weary of their unhelpful babbling, things he was certain would have given him a migraine if he had a brain. The embers that were his eyes dulled as he drifted off, seeping into a meditative state, where all irritating white noise was blocked out.

* * *

He did not sleep.

It was a horrifying discovery, proven over the course of the next few hours. The sages left, the window's dimmed, and the room became dark as pitch. His eyes were not bright enough to penetrate the shroud of shadows that engulfed the room, leaving him to stew in his misery undistracted. It looked to be a long night.

_"…even oblivion can't be this bad."_

Bored as hell, the lord knight rolled his arms in front of him, close enough for the red glow to catch the metal surface. Though it was no longer of any use to him, it saddening to see the sorry shape it had been blasted into. It looked like someone had taken an axe, hammer, and chisel to it. The smooth, melted plates were now twisted and angular, dented by the spells that had greeted him as he entered the city. Something had severed it below the elbow, and spears of ice had penetrated at several points, forming dark gaps in the web of glowing lines that ran through his arm-

…wait a second…

Even as he watched, his arm began to fade away, turning insubstantial before his very eyes. It was not that it was disappearing; it was turning transparent, revealing the pathways of light that ran through his arms. They were like veins, traveling through his arm in an intricate network, reaching into ever corner and nook, leaving no corner completely untouched. It was a strange sight, to say the least. Especially when those veins began to pulsate and flow.

Slowly, sluggishly, the lines began to extend themselves, growing around the gaps that had been formed by the damage. It flowed around the punctures, rerouted around fissures, apparently repairing itself of damage inflicted.

He had no idea what was happening. He had no idea what it was. All he knew was that this was a rather intriguing phenomenon, if completely fucking worthless. Now, if these lines some how let him levitate his fucking arm and bring it up to his face, that'd be another story.

Imagine his surprise when exactly that happened.

_…what the-_

The hand moved through the air smoothly, as if an extension of some unseen limb. Though it still lacked the ability to grip things due to the fused finger joints, something told the lord knight that if he somehow managed to free them, they would move as well as before. It could wave. It could reach. It could do anything but fly too far away from him, where it began to hover unsteadily, as if striking some invisible barrier.

What interested him the most, however, was that when he let it drop, it swung back past his head next to his motionless torso, rather than simply falling on the floor.

Perhaps the hag's words were true after all, he mused, perhaps he _could_ move himself simply by thinking it. His body was still drawn together, despite her words, and he could shape it, to some extent. Is so, than perhaps…

Slowly, the lord knight closed his eyes, focusing his will inwards, centering himself…

* * *

Outside the storeroom, Barren, the giant of a sage, fumbled nervously with the lock on the door. Spineless as he was, even he could be roused into action with the right motivation, to the point of going behind his mistress's back and breaking into another sage's storeroom, even. As grave an offense as it was, he felt that the consequence of missing this opportunity were even greater.

It was not everyday that one got to study a monster this unique, after all.

With an uncharacteristic grunt, the giant of a sage threw himself against the door, forcing the lock apart as if it were made of matchwood. Quickly, Barren took a look around to see if any had heard the commotion. Satisfied that hadn't been discovered, the giant sage slid quietly through the door, closing it softly behind him. As he stepped into the darkness of the room, the sage uttered a simple incantation. A small torch flickered into being, illuminating the room.

Illuminating the room's other occupant in the process.

Barren froze. It was the armor he had come to study, not a jumble of scattered broken plates, but a six-foot apparition of black armor, housing two blood-red embers. Broken, dislocated, and disconnected as the pieces were, they hung in midair stilly, as if strapped to an invisible frame. The monster had come back to life. The sage was all but certain that it was going to celebrate by ending his.

Fortunately for Barren, that seemed to be the last thing on the armor's mind. Ignoring the sage completely, the armor twisted, lurched, and turned, as if trying to orient itself.

Eventually, it found it's bearings and, with some effort, stumbled past the sage, going through the doorway without bother to open it. With a crash of splintering wood, the armor was out, thundering down the hallways like a set of hammers on an anvil.

For a while, Barren simply stared at the man-shaped hole in the doorframe, too stupefied with the sudden appearance and disappearance of the armor to do anything. Eventually, the great driving force of his life kicked in, shaking him out of his shock to pursue the monster.

There were so many mysteries surrounding the empty suit, so many questions that the sage wanted answered. Where had it come from? Why was it here? What was it doing? What was _it_?

And above all else, why, oh _why_ was there the perfect imprint of a skinless human body, veins, tendons, muscles and all seared into the inside of the plating?

The sage intended to find out, even if it cost him his life.


End file.
